Tiempo Climate Newswatch

The Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change came into force on February 16th 2005. The United States and Australia remain outside the agreement. "We will continue to pressure hard for all of our international partners to come on board," said Stavros Dimas, European Union environment commissioner. "The countries (outside the treaty) say they will take measures on their own but I wonder if they can work," commented Japan's Foreign Minister, Nobutaka Machimura.

With the Protocol's entry into force:

1. industrialized nations must meet quantitative targets for limiting their greenhouse gas emissions, reducing their combined emissions of six major gases to 5.2 per cent below 1990 levels by the period 2008-2012;
2. the framework for an international carbon trading market will come into being;
3. the Clean Development Mechanism will move to full operation, encouraging investments in developing-country projects that limit emissions and are consistent with sustainable development goals; and,
4. the Adaptation Fund will start preparations to assist developing countries cope with the impacts of climate change.

More information

• BBC
• VoA
• Yahoo! News
• The Mercury

• ENN
• Guardian Unlimited
• Background, Guardian Unlimited
• Background, UNFCCC

2005 could be the warmest year on record, according to scientists at the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). A weak El Niño may nudge the global temperature well above the recent warming trend, "a trend that has been shown to be due primarily to increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere," said Jim Hansen, of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.

The warming of the Pacific during El Niño events was partially responsible for the notable warmth of 1998 (the warmest year on record) and 2002-3. 2004 was the fourth warmest year on record. According to the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration the current El Niño will weaken over the next three months.

More information

• CNN
• Science Daily

• Report on 2004 temperatures, NASA
• Latest El Niño forecast, NOAA

Global warming will make food supplies scarce over the present century, warns Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute. "The combination of rising temperatures and falling water tables is likely to lead to a tightening of world grain supplies," he said. "This is already evident with world rice prices, which have risen over 30 per cent in the last year." Half the world's population live in countries where wells are drying up and water tables are falling, he continued.

The grain harvest during 2004 reached a record high as a result of favourable weather, but during the four previous years supply could not meet demand as crops were adversely affected by heat in the United States, Europe and India. "If stocks go down, we could see a scramble, and I think we're likely to see a politics of food scarcity beginning to emerge," Brown predicted.

More information

• ENN